MIRALI (North Wazir­ist­an): The Pakistan Army has so far driven out suspected terrorists from “90 per cent” territory of North Waziristan Agency since the start of Operation Zarb-i-Azb in June.

A total of 1,198 terrorists have been killed and 356 injured since the operation was launched five months ago, Zarb-i-Azb Military Operation Commander Maj Gen Zafarullah Khan said on Saturday.

“So far an area of 2,708 square kilometres has been wrested back from the terrorists while the rest will be cleared as early as possible.”

Army says 1,198 terrorists killed

The commander, however, said temporarily displaced persons (TDPs) would be allowed to return home after removal of landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) laid by terrorists. “This will take time.”

Maj Gen Khan told reporters specially flown to Mirali and Miramshah for a briefing: “In an across-the-board military operation against foreign and local terrorists hiding in North Waziristan, we have also made major recoveries of weapons, am­munition, explosives, IEDs and their manufacturing facilities.”

He said 6,752 rifles, 2,470 sub-machineguns, including sniper rifles with 0.67m ammunition, 293 machineguns and light machineguns with 0.24m ammunition and 111 guns (12.7 mm and 14.5 mm) with 0.25m ammunition were recovered from different areas.

A total of 389 rocket-launchers and recoilless rifles with 5,481 rockets, 68 mortars with 5,667 rounds, 3,821 hand-grenades and 4,991 IEDs, besides 132,000kg of explosive material were also seized.

All these arms and ammunition were buried by terrorists before fleecing the area, he added.

Maj Gen Khan said that IEDs manufacturing facilities, weapons and ammunition manufacturing facilities, caves, tunnels, underground hideouts, private jails and deten­tion centres were un­ear­thed during the operation.

The army, he said, had inflicted a loss of Rs2.49 billion on terrorist coffers. The loss included the money spent on weapons, ammunition and IEDs, explosive material, vehicles, motorcycles and communication equipment.

He said terrorists had the capability to cause as many as 88,440 casualties through IEDs alone and such capability could have enabled them to prolong the conflict for another 14 years by using five IEDs per day.

He said the army had so far suffered 197 casualties.

Maj Gen Khan said the terrorists’ freedom of movement had been throttled. As many as 250 strangulation posts and checkpoints were deployed around major communication centres.

Simultaneously, the Ghulam Khan-Miramshah-Razmak line was sealed to stop terrorists’ movement to settled areas.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2014